RB Pitboss #1 SPOILER - Hatshepsut / India

[regoarrarr]

The big news of the turn(s) is that I have entered the fray by declaring war on both dsplaisted and shadyforce

First off, here was ZPV's assessment, which you may have already seen in his thread since I saw he made a (rare) posting

Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks for your support!

I'll give you my knowledge of the military situation:

On turn 99 (about a third of the way through), shadyforce declared war on me, killing a NC and a warrior, capturing (and trying to keep!) a worker, and razing my horse city, Hippo. His force to do that consisted: a Combat 2 Horse Archer, and two unpromoted immortals. None of them will gain another promotion as a result of the battle. The HA is on 4.2/6, and its accompanying immortal is on 3.4/4 health. The other immortal is now dead. :-)

At the very start of turn 100, dsplaisted declared war on me, and razed Leptis, my other city in the region which I thought was safe, attacking amphibiously from a galley in the fog. My defending Warrior killed an Axe, but then died to a spear. The spear is on about 3.2/4 health, and will be killed by regoarrarr's adjacent axeman.

Since then, I have made some moves. I have 10 Numidian Cavalry in total, and my two which were in the region (the rest are now a turn's journey from the dead zone) both attacked and won. One of them destroyed an Axeman-escort, and I deleted the worker it was guarding. The other one destroyed the immortal that was covering my captive worker.

I also have an W2G1 explorer currently on a forest, set to move onto a forested hill, where it can observe shadyforce's troop movements over a large region in his territory.

Here is a list of shadyforce's known troops with locations: (I would give a screenshot, but we don't have paper yet).

Fairfield 3S2W: C2 Horse Archer (4.2/6), Immortal (3.4/6)
The Castle: Spearman
The Castle 1W: promotable Horse Archer, Worker
The Bank: Spearman, Axeman
The Factory (projected): 1 skirmisher, 1 spearman.
The Harbour: nothing
The Grocer: nothing
Command Central: 1 warrior.
Also, anything built on the interturn.

My ETA for Machinery has dropped back by 1 turn because of this, but I still make almost 100bpt

-ZPV

He and I chatted several times over the course of the day, which I won't paste here because it's on my other computer, but one tidbit which I found funny was

10:23 me: do you have any risk from dsp?
10:23 me: i find it suspicious that he has not ended turn
10:24 zpv: no risk from dsp. I can't see a galley in a threatening place.

10:49 zpv: dsp declared war on me, and captured Leptis.

So I was pretty set on declaring war on dsp, since there's little he can do to hurt me. But I was unsure about shady, since I don't have a giant military and we do share a (somewhat long) border. In the end, I decided to go for it.

Here was my (extremely long) email to the G5 recapping things

Okay - mostly this is going out to ZPV but just keeping the rest of you guys in the loop. As some background, ZPV and I have had some chats today and he asked me to declare war on dsp and shady, which I have just now done.

I believe I did set the record for the rudest initial greeting in the history of this game, as I only just this turn (Finally!) met dsp, when his spear came off the boat and razed the Carthaginian city of Leptis. My axe Henry had been heading that way for the purpose of seeing the Malinese borders, and was in position to bury dsp's spear, which he did (flawlessly I may point out!). I sent him 1N of the city ruins, with the idea of heading along the coast to meet up with the main force.

Then we come along to shady. For some reason, the quote that someone (it may even have been sunrise) said in the apolyton game after Templars declared - something like "Oh, sugar, you just gone and done the dumbest thing in your whole life"

I honestly think shady is in deep doodoo. I am actually kind of surprised that he did not even ask me to remain neutral today. Though in a way perhaps this was a good move for him, because (and ZPV I hope you're okay with me sharing this), we have had some "plans" for him for awhile now. ZPV has been chop-whipping Num Cavs with the idea of taking out shady, but shady just struck a few turns before go-time.

I believe ZPV has somewhere around 10 Num Cavs. We did an analysis on shady's power, and he essentially has nothing. No, really.

Here is what has happened in the past turn or so

Shady sent 2 immortals and a HA against Hippo.
Shady HA killed Num Cav
Shady Immortal killed Warrior
Shady immortal captured worker (did not delete)

Carthage Num Cav killed immortal (retook worker)
Carthage Num Cav killed axe near the shady city of The Castle (deleted worker)

Shady HA killed wounded Num Cav near Hippo (Retook worker; did not delete)
Shady spear garrisoning The Castle killed wounded Carthage Num Cav

Now, Indian spear kills wounded Persian spear (took one hit, afterwards promoted to 3.6/4 Combat 1).

I confirmed that The Castle is empty. There is a HA 2 SW that can reach the city next turn, but the new Shady city of The Lighthouse I believe is 1 SE of the HA ( that's S-S-SW of The Castle), and dollars to donuts the city is empty. Seriously he has an archer that we've seen, and a warrior guarding his capital and he can't have more than 3 or 4 warriors past that, and no more than a single barracks, if that.

He does have #1 prod (47 hpt), so that can crank out some units, but he is in line for a serious whuppin.

I verified through sabotage production on the espionage screen that the build queue of The Castle is empty (probably just produced that HA this turn), and it's only size 3, so it can't whip anything from scratch, so we shouldn't see anything produced there next turn. Too bad my spear is 2 turns away.

I will have a WE at Green Twp next turn, and another one at Fairfield the turn after that. I also have a warrior that I'm sending down the east coast just to check things out - maybe I can spy an undefended city.

ZPV next time you are in game, if you give me the numbers off the espionage screen for investigate city and sabotage production, for each of Shady's cities, as well as the number of espionage points you have on him and he has on you, I can calculate how many hammers are in the queue for each city, which should be useful info.

[regoarrarr]

Here are my explaining emails to dsp and shady

To Dsp:

So I'm just trying to set the record for rudest initial greeting in the game.

But.... I kind of declared war on you and killed your spear :-). Now, I did give Never Odd or Even a good burial, but I have left the scene.

Now, I didn't particularly WANT to declare war on you but it was kind of one of those things where the enemy of my friend is my enemy and he asked me to take care of it so he didn't have to move his worker.

And actually, to be complete, ZPV asked me to give your spear a kick on my way out, but I want to state for the record that I did NOT do that. See, I'm a good guy - really I am!

I have offered you peace in-game, but I would understand if for whatever reason you felt it is not in your best interests to take that.

But you HAVE to tell me how in the heck you got the Great Lighthouse so fast! I had some serious plans to go for it, but you built it before I even got started! I think that will definitely be a good wonder for this map / game.

I would be interested in having some high-level discussions about where you see this game going and kind of the future of the UTA / NUTA. But that's a bit much since we just met and frankly, it wasn't that great of a meeting (at least for you). So maybe that's a topic for another day. But I do think that you and I match up well and with ZPV down a peg (or two), the two of us might be the only folks that can give Krill and Memphus any sort of challenge.

Hope to hear from you soon

And to shady:

So..... I kind of declared war on you. :-)

Isn't it the irony of ironies? After I spent the whole freakin game trying to figure out ways to stop you from attacking me! But as someone pointed out on my spoiler thread (and this was awhile ago and talking about something else), I kind of already made my bed in this game, so I had to lie in it (hopefully that's not an American-only idiom)

So, obviously this probably puts a damper on our relationship, and I find that unfortunate. I really do, and wish there could have been a better way. Perhaps later on, or, barring that, in another game.

If you've got ideas of how we can possibly extricate ourselves from this situation (and all stop playing Krill's game), I'm happy to listen

[regoarrarr]

And last but not least, some pics. Well, one pic.



A few things to note:

Shady's forces
* Famine the Immortal, C1 3.7/4 and Sir Gallopsalot the Horse Archer, C2 4.1/6 in the bottom left.
* Tailor the worker, unescorted on the tile 1W of The Castle
* Unnamed promotable Horse Archer 2SW of The Castle
* City of The Lighthouse, believed to be 3S 1W of The Castle

My forces
* George the spear, C1 3.6/4 - 2N of The Castle
* Henry the axe, 1/2 XP 5/5 - 6SW of The Castle (off-screen)

ZPV's forces
* Woody 2 Guerrilla 1 explorer, 2N 1NE of The Castle
* 9-10 Num Cavs coming up the road to Hippo (offscreen to the SW)

* I moved Amy my Fairfield worker from the hill tile 2S of Fairfield to the hill tile 2N (love those fast workers!). I probably should have kept her on the road though.

* Carolyn and Freida finished chopping the dye SE of Green Twp but rather than plantationing it moved W-NW to cottage the river grassland, safer and more out of harms way.
* Green Twp will finish a War Elephant next turn, and probably double whip another one the turn after that.


* Fairfield will double whip its War Elephant next turn and overflow into something. It still needs a barracks, which I thought about doing instead of a WE but didn't want to risk having both mounted Persian units try something at the city.

* Why don't I have the cows?! I could understand on T99 after Hippo was razed that it would take a turn for the culture to reset but come on man!

[regoarrarr]

Email from Broker to the G5

I started Aest and will goto drama if need be you guys can use cash for upgrades I will need alittle to research.

Current plans are to pull 9 more HA's out of my ass then go into grow mode. I have libs going into my commerce city and hybred city very soon and cottaging everything in site.

Here is a quote from Krill in a chat today. I think you need to hit Shady hard and raze anything you capture but be prepared to pull back expect Impi,preat reinforcements.

4:39 PM old.mail.storage: Indeed there is
4:40 PM How long do you think that regoarrarr and ZPV will hold out, against 5 other team, if you, sunrise and Kalin are busy with me?

Now the general gist of my conversation is he is trying to recruit me which quite honestly tells me he isnt as confident as he portrays. I mention this to assure you I will meet my commitment to this group and assist in any way I can.

Response from shady

Further irony is that you're taking the side of the guy who founded the city in the location that annoyed you and declaring on the guy who razed it for you.

Anyway, don't worry about it. You have to do what you have to do I suppose.

Of course he doesn't realize that it really wasn't that annoying and that it was an agreed upon location.

[regoarrarr]

Email to Ruff

Hey Ruff,

So, Krill has been tossing around the fact that ZPV and I, in addition to fighting dsp and shadyforce, will soon be in a "5 versus 2". It has certainly crossed my mind that he is just talking big, and it has crossed my mind that it is also in his best interests to get the rest of us embroiled in a big war while he continues to expand (out to his 10th! city). I found it amusing that while chatting with him yesterday he said something like "I have my friends doing exactly what I want and my enemies too"

But it seems prudent to at least prepare for the fact that you and/or Imhotep and/or someone else ( m-h i guess) might be heading my way. I'll be prepared.

Instead, doesn't it seem better to do something to change the dynamic? Since a 6v5 is pretty even, what if we changed things up to a 7v4 or 8v3?

What if you and Imhotep sent whatever forces you might have planned to head my way and used them on Krill? Or M-H? I'm flexible to how you might see things ending up. I'm also willing to talk to you about if you were worried that once the "enemies" were dispatched that what you call the UTA would just stick together and take you out. I don't think that would be a given but I understand how you might worry about that and I am willing to figure out a way that you don't need to worry about that.

So what do you think?

I sent the same basic letter to Imhotep but just changed the names around.

[Dantski]

Definitely interesting stuff, all when the forums go down

At the moment unless they bring overwhelming forces, Ruff and Imho will have a hard time rolling over us or ZPV once we get Maces/Xbows up and running.

Does Krill really think he can live 1v3 though? Or is one of his 'friends' backing him up. I think we really have a chance of breaking up the NUTA if we can convince them that Krill will either...

a) walk away in tech with us/ZPV/dsp all busy fighting (although Krill has to watch Sunrise/Lins/Broker too.

b) backstab them at the first opportunity

I guess at the moment its a question of how strongly tied are their 6 players? Seems to me like they are happy for shady to go down unless dsp has significan forces to spare nearby. If he does die, then the rest of the NUTA has to be questioning whether they're in the right camp or not.

For ourselves unless you have plans to actively take cities, the best thing we can do is keep shady tied up by forcing him to defend in as many places as possible and stop him concerntrating troops.

[regoarrarr]

Okay - a few things going on for this turn.

First off - I sent an email off to ZPV

Hey ZPV,

I appreciated the note that you sent me about the shady axe 1NE of the explorer. I think it would be great if we could each send the other a note after our turns just giving a sort of sit-rep on what is going on.

I think the turn order is ZPV->Shady->Regoarrarr. So you can tell me what shady has built, and I can tell you where he has moved to.

I saw no units. I am assuming your 3 NCs to the south of Fairfield dispatched shady's wounded units.

The Castle was whipped for one pop. Espionage indicates it has 50 hammers in the box. I'm going to guess an axe.

I moved my spear back on the iron, and moved up the elephant that was built in Green. Fairfield whipped an elephant, and Green will whip another one next turn.

Henry the axe is moving NE towards THe Lighthouse.

Since you seem to be a better tactician than me, I'll follow your lead. I'll move the spear and elephant 1S to the jungle hill. I was thinking I should cut the road, which, ironically enough, I built :-), and then move 1S again to the jungle hill 1NW of the Castle.

Nothing should have odds on a combat 2 elephant, right? And I should promote now, right?

I am assuming that the HA that was in between the 2 shady cities moved towards the Lighthouse - I can't see it anymore.

That's mostly what went on militarily. Watching BYU - Oklahoma right now (Go Cougars!) so I don't have a lot of time to give a more detailed report.

Pasture on the horse is done, so I'll have horses in 2 turns after the road.

[regoarrarr]

Also had an interesting chat with Krill

Conversation with Krill on 9/4/2009 11:18:01 AM:
(11:18:01 AM) Krill: So, enjoying the show over there?
(4:21:14 PM) Krill: small request for you regoarrarr
(4:21:59 PM) Krill: the fast worker that is chopping south of Norwood
(4:22:30 PM) Krill: nm
(5:40:19 PM) me: oh?
(5:40:47 PM) Krill: doesn't matter
(5:41:01 PM) Krill: just saw you had that city on the plains hill up north
(5:41:16 PM) Krill: I'll move the quechua to get sight on that then move it directly south.
(5:41:21 PM) Krill: Be out of your land in 2 turns
(5:42:06 PM) Krill: go check the SANCTA forums in 15 minutes
(5:42:14 PM) Krill: and tell as many SANCTA members as you can will you?
(5:42:20 PM) Krill: somehting big just came up
(5:55:48 PM) Krill: enjoying the read?
(6:10:33 PM) me: had to scan as i am heading out

---


(8:41:34 PM) Krill: Enjoying the war?
(8:56:55 PM) me: so far so good
(8:57:29 PM) Krill: I suppose I should say thank you.
(8:57:32 PM) me: oh?
(8:58:06 PM) Krill: Oh, I'm sure a harden diplomacy player such as yourself will know why
(8:58:25 PM) me: so are you tweaking me about the whole diplomacy player thing?
(8:58:28 PM) me: you've mentioned it a few times
(8:58:34 PM) me: it's probably deserved if you are
(8:59:34 PM) Krill: Well, after your thread in the RB forum detailing how you won your last game of it...
(9:00:12 PM) me: that's fine
(9:00:39 PM) me: so, as the hardened diplomacy veteran that i am,
(9:00:42 PM) me: if i were you
(9:00:46 PM) me: i would thank me
(9:01:00 PM) me: because i've a) got shady and dsp thinking war
(9:01:05 PM) me: b) i'm focusing myself on war
(9:01:11 PM) me: (rather than building more)
(9:01:17 PM) me: how's that?
(9:02:01 PM) Krill: nad we repeat the conversation
(9:03:16 PM) me: so are you going to try and steal my workers or raze my cities with that quechua?
(9:03:23 PM) Krill: nope
(9:03:35 PM) Krill: don't exactly have goods odds
(9:04:25 PM) Krill: question is do I send it south to shadyforce, maybe keep it as a sentry, or send it north and hunt for your remaining cities
(9:04:51 PM) me: how many have you found?
(9:04:59 PM) Krill: 6
(9:05:23 PM) me: do you know which ones you're missing?
(9:05:28 PM) me: i would assume blue ash
(9:05:30 PM) Krill: looking at hte terrain, I reckon you founded one for the horses and clams
(9:05:42 PM) Krill: and one for hte shepe
(9:05:53 PM) Krill: maybe shep and crabs
(9:06:02 PM) Krill: one day I'll learn to type
(9:06:16 PM) me: heh
(9:06:59 PM) me: the interesting question if you send it south is whether it is truly a neutral observer
(9:07:30 PM) Krill: yup
(9:07:46 PM) Krill: and what everyone is going to do about it.
(9:07:53 PM) me: no reports back to shadyforce?
(9:07:54 PM) Krill: isn't diplomacy fun
(9:08:14 PM) me: similar to when MS had that woody warrior near tky that we kicked out
(9:08:31 PM) me: you could understand how i might not want someone reporting back to shady
(9:08:31 PM) Krill: Ah, the OB is cancelled on what turn again?
(9:08:41 PM) me: well i don't know that we officially canceled it?
(9:08:54 PM) Krill: I thought you said the NAP was cancelled?
(9:08:58 PM) Krill: ie in cool down
(9:09:08 PM) Krill: in which case I thought the OB would have finished on the same turn
(9:09:16 PM) me: i think what i said (or at least what i meant to say) was that soon i was going to want to cancel it
(9:09:22 PM) me: i dunno
(9:09:24 PM) me: what do you want to do?
(9:09:24 PM) Krill: oh, ok
(9:09:42 PM) Krill: Well, if I move the quechua south, he'll be staying out of your borders for sure
(9:09:56 PM) Krill: don;t exactly want you bumping him out and killing him
(9:10:07 PM) Krill: MS situation, as you said
(9:10:44 PM) me: right
(9:10:47 PM) me: here's what i want from you
(9:11:03 PM) me: i would like to not worry about having to closely guard my cities and workers
(9:11:09 PM) me: and i don't want you sharing things to shady
(9:11:13 PM) me: what would you like from me?
(9:11:43 PM) Krill: what sort of things?
(9:11:48 PM) Krill: to Shady, I mean?
(9:12:26 PM) me: well you saw my massive stack at norwood, right?
(9:12:55 PM) me: so things like if i were sending units to him from that direction
(9:13:05 PM) me: or the composition of my garrisons / locations of my cities
(9:13:40 PM) me: that kind of thing
(9:14:36 PM) Krill: locations of cities is basically out. I can't know for sure that you haven't already gifted the infomation of the locaiton of my cities to Kalin
(9:14:52 PM) me: ok
(9:14:54 PM) Krill: troop composition and placement on the otherhad...
(9:14:57 PM) me: i haven't
(9:15:13 PM) me: but i guess i might down the road
(9:15:14 PM) me: so that's fair
(9:17:53 PM) Krill: so, if I were to send my quechua south, and keep him as a sentry, you're basically asking meto be a, well, is benedict arnold the correct term?
(9:18:36 PM) me: well i guess that depends on the composition of your alliance
(9:18:50 PM) me: you could always send him north
(9:19:31 PM) me: for your information, i chose to send my warrior west past your lands rather than keeping him to watch out on you
(9:19:40 PM) me: now you certainly can just say that i'm foolish for doing that
(9:20:06 PM) Krill: I could certainly say something
(9:20:13 PM) Krill: I don;t know what I would say though
(9:20:28 PM) me: lol
(9:20:39 PM) me: probably best not to pontificate too much late at night....
(9:20:43 PM) me: on a weekend...
(9:20:51 PM) Krill: ha, yeah
(9:21:15 PM) Krill: Reckon Shadyforce is going to get one of your cities?
(9:21:18 PM) me: no
(9:21:35 PM) Krill: Simple answer.
(9:23:08 PM) Krill: On a purely metagame level, youi reckon this game could have gone any other way than 2 alliance?
(9:23:49 PM) Krill: Something I've been wondering about, as well as what effect the game options have had
(9:24:00 PM) Krill: maybe talk about that another day
(9:25:07 PM) me: sorry - watching college football on the comp too
(9:25:24 PM) me: well it seems that an early trading bloc seems to have to be around 5 or 6 wide, right?
(9:25:48 PM) me: to get all the regular techs
(9:26:10 PM) Krill: or could smaller blocs have formed?
(9:26:15 PM) me: it does seem like maybe if no tech trading was on you could get a different dynamic
(9:26:21 PM) Krill: 3-4 members
(9:26:45 PM) Krill: Yeah, no tech brokering forces closed groups
(9:26:52 PM) me: yeah

Basically trying to figure out if his quechua that is in my east is going north or south. I don't really want it to go south where it might give reports to shadyforce. Continuing to have some interesting meta-game conversations with him.

[regoarrarr]

Some diplomatic / tactical notes. I will try to post something with some pics soon, hopefully tonight

Email reply from dsp

I don't bear you any ill will over attacking my spearman given the situation. I didn't get the actual offer for peace in-game I think, I've sent one your way now.

The factors which allowed me to build The Great Lighthouse early were being expansive and having lots of forests to chop. I whipped the first worker, then used chops and more whips to build another worker and a Settler. The Settler settled on a coastal site with a lot of forests, and I was able to chop and whip out The Great Lighthouse there.

It definitely took a lot of experimenting in a sandbox game to find the optimal plan to build it the soonest. When the game finally finishes you'll be able to look at my thread and see pretty much exactly what I did, if you're still interested by then.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about the UTA/NUTA, but after two days of getting home from PAX around 3:00 am, I'm going to go to bed now instead of think too hard about that part of the game.

My reply

I saw that you proposed a cease fire. I guess I'm not sure what the difference is between that and an actual peace treaty, other than that lasts 10 turns for sure. Was there a reason you chose just a cease fire?

As for TGL, thanks for the update. I will definitely be interested in checking out your thread after the game is over.

As to the metagaming - I guess I'm just interested to see your thoughts on what we would have to do to keep Krill from running away with this game. He's already mentioned to me something along the lines of "I have my friends doing what I want and even my enemies doing exactly what I want"

Since you and I seem to be the top powers besides him (at least from a score perspective), it seems like we should be able to make some things happen? Hopefully when you get some time we can talk more about that

[regoarrarr]

Some tactical notes from ZPV.

I think I got the location of shady's axe wrong last turn - it is now 1NE of The Castle (now that it has moved).
He also built an axe in that city, which is the only defender there at the moment. Yes, I mopped up the units near the ruins of Hippo.

You can see my stack of 6 NC, and some workers. I have a steady stream of reinforcements, but I will try to execute a sneak attack on The Castle in 3-4 turns - if we could co-ordinate for that, that would be great.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My current plan is:
next turn - two workers build a road 1SW of Fairfield, units move to Fairfield 1SE - 3rd worker moves to Fairfield 1SE and builds a road for one turn.. shady does not have visibility of that square

turn after: two workers move to Fairfield, road completes, units do nothing

turn after: two workers build a road 2SE of Fairfield, units move to The Castle 1SW.

From there, I can either attack the city or move to split his cities (threaten more than one at once).
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Here's an alternative plan, if you have a worker turn to spare:

next turn: all three workers move into Fairfield. You build a road for one turn at Fairfield 1SE, and my units cover it there.

turn after: my 3 workers finish that road and build a road at Fairfield 2SE. My units move to The Castle 1SW.
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What to do if the Castle is well defended?
My thoughts are, I'll feint towards The Factory (horse city), but move on The Bank (dyes city) instead. That isn't a great producer, has only a spear for defence AFAIK, and provides easy access to Command Central if I am successful.

What should we do with your units?
First of all, we should note that they are slow 1-movers. They can strike a border city, or else tie down the troops there, so they can't follow my mounted stack. Ideally, we should find somewhere shady can't see, to avoid letting shady know that we are about to attack - the elephant and spear on the iron are plausible resource defenders, but more than that, and he might start to get a little suspicious.

Do you have a road on the farm 2E1N of Fairfield? If so, then the other two elephants can mass halfway between Fairfield and Green Township, and then move into 2-move distance from the Castle in one turn. If not, then I guess the answer is to move the remaining elephants onto the iron (or Iron 1NW) one turn before they all move in.
I think they should move into Persian territory on the same turn my units do - that way they can provide a lingering threat, or the decisive edge if the battle is close. Any earlier, and you might remind him that he should be building spears, instead of the axes we can see now.

Let me know what you think about this.

-ZPV

We chatted a bit after this and I think we are in agreement that I spent 1 worker turn building a road 1 south WEST of Fairfield (instead of SE in the email), which will allow him to move things up one turn.

I believe that the plan is to get into place T104 to attack T105 (i.e. in 3 turns). I will try and get an image out here to show the plans, hopefully later tonight.